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With its economical prose, piercing wit, and eclectic, observational asides, Jenny Offill's Dept. of Speculation reads like the love child of David Markson, Lydia Davis, and Alejandro Zambra. At its core, it's a novel about a marriage — a marriage that is starting to shatter just as the wife's life is starting to break down. But it's also a novel about motherhood, trust, faith, music, art, and astronomy, reminiscent of the myriad thoughts that fill our heads as we lie awake at night.

A nice companion piece to something like Connell's Mrs. Bridge, Dept. of Speculation combines insightful humor with astute analysis of modern life in a book I'll be recommending for quite some

There will never be another author like Dorothy Parker. She had a style of writing all her own, and this book is a perfect introduction to her work. Complete Stories does a great job of showing Parker at her best — it shows her range and her depth, her ability to comment on issues that were considered unmentionable at the time (such as suicide, alcoholism, child abuse, abortion, infidelity), and her distaste for the artificial and the egotistical. If you are a big fan of dry humor, as I am, then you will find this book to be worth its weight in

Somehow, Katherine Mansfield gets right into the heart of what makes us all human. Her stories are filled with arrivals and departures, spinsterhood and marriage, love and loss and pangs of despair. They are simply small slices of life; rare glimpses into human nature with sharp insights. She might make some (more astute) readers uncomfortable, but reading this collection is a deeply enriching literary

Aside from her infamous story "The Lottery," Shirley Jackson's genius with the short story form is often overlooked. The stories in Just an Ordinary Day represent the great diversity of her work, from her incredibly dry, sarcastic humor to her explorations of the human psyche. The tales range, chronologically, from the writings of her college days and residence in Greenwich Village in the early 1940s to the unforgettably chilling stories from the period just before her death. Give this one a shot; I have a feeling you'll hold onto it for a

One critic aptly described Selby's debut novel, Last Exit to Brooklyn, as an "urgent ticker tape from hell." This book will grab you by the throat and drag you, willingly or otherwise, into Selby's Brooklyn ? a Brooklyn inhabited by dope addicts, hoodlums, prostitutes, drag queens, corrupt union workers, and thieves brawling in the back alley. Selby's ability to write these otherwise despicable characters with compassion is what makes his novels so intriguing

Edmund White is one of American literature's best kept secrets, and Hotel de Dream is his finest novel in nearly a decade. Give this one a chance; I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. If you've never read any of White's novels, this is a fantastic place to start. If you have read White's work before, this one just might rekindle your interest in him.